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this size, and three times as many people on it. They landed, and then sat here for two weeks until their supplies ran out. And of course, since the second group was ready for rain, there wasn't any. They were just about ready to give up and try a
    search from orbit when the Outposters came out of the trees again. Our people got all excited, went out in their pressure suits for the First Contact—and the rains came down. Heavier than this, heavier than ever. Couldn't see three feet. Our people were suddenly up to their knees in mud, and the 'Posters vanished."
    "Never to be seen again?"
    "That's right. The powers-that-be decided they couldn't afford to keep all that scientific talent waiting around. I think they got nervous about putting all the big brains in such a dangerous situation. Anyway, the orders came down two days ago, and here we are, the smallest practical crew with the most supplies they could cram in a lander."
    "And we sit here until hell freezes over, or until the natives show?"
    "And then we put the one linguist in the star system in charge. We don't try anything else this time until we can talk. Our job is to make contact, or die of old age waiting to try."
    "What you're telling me is that I'm going to do human-land's first contact with another intelligent species," Lucille said. "Me, a prisoner, a slave laborer."
    The troopers and the pilot looked up sharply at that. "Relax, all of you," Gustav said warningly. "She's telling the truth. She is what she says she is, and we all know it, no matter what we're told. It's just us followers here without any leaders. No one to pretend in front of." He turned back to Lucille. "Yes, you're here to do the contact. You are the closest thing to a linguist we've got, and you're expendable. As are the rest of us. And let's not pretend about that, either."
    The trooper came up from the lower deck, carrying a thermos and coffee cups. He poured for Gustav and Lucille. "Thanks, Mansfield. Get at ease and stay there. We could be cooped up for a while. Might as well take it easy or we'll be at each other's throats." Gustav handed Lucille a cup and the two of them returned to the viewport. "We don't know anything about them," he told her. "We don't
    have any decent close-up photos of them, we don't know if they're a high civilization or sitting around in mud huts. There's no way to be certain they're really intelligent, in our meaning of the word. Apes use tools, and some insects organize well—but the photos we've got seem to show them carrying things made of worked metal. Working ore into metal sure as hell suggests intelligence. But we don't know. We don't know if they are nomads or have vast cities. No one has ever bothered to map the planet properly. You've seen the cloud cover from orbit—it hasn't helped. Our charts are barely more than outlines of the continents. We've never taken much interest in the planet itself. The temperate zones are as you see them here— this is as attractive as Outpost gets."
    Lucille said nothing. First Contact. Very old words for something new, something that had never happened. And it was hers.
    The raindrops drummed down on the hull.
    They waited. The sun went down and Gustav gave up watching at the port. He dug a book out of his kit and began to read.
    The pilot and the two troopers went belowdecks to their bunks, but Lucille stayed at the porthole, too caught up in it all to do anything but watch and wait. Never had she seriously considered the possibility of making First Contact. Oh, she had dreamed of it, talked it up in the bull sessions with the other Survey students, in a time that seemed far removed from being a CI and a prisoner to the Guardians. No one who ventured into unknown space could help but think of the possibilities. But this was real. The myriad possibilities had focused down onto one actuality, and that was Lucille Calder, the half-abo rancher's daughter, about to be the first human being to converse with an alien